CHAPTER XII
WASHINGTON MONUMENT
Down the White House driveway rolled the carriage, drawn by the prancinghorses. It was coming toward the iron gate near which, on the sidewalk,stood the Bobbsey twins, with their new friends, Billy and Nell Martin.
On the front seat of the carriage, which was an open one, in spite ofthe fact that the day was cool, though not very cold, sat two men. Onedrove the horses and the other sat up very straight and still.
"I should think he'd have an automobile," remarked Bert.
"He has," answered Billy. "He has an auto--two of 'em, I guess. But lotsof times he rides around Washington in a carriage just as he's doingnow."
"That's right," chimed in Nell. "Sometimes we see the President and hiswife in a carriage, like now, and sometimes in a big auto."
By this time the carriage, containing the President of the UnitedStates, was passing through the gate. A crowd of curious persons, whohad seen what was going on, as had the Bobbsey twins, came hurrying upto catch a glimpse of the head of the nation. The police officers andthe men from the White House ground kept the crowd from coming too closeto the President's carriage.
The Chief Executive, as he is often called, saw the crowd of peoplewaiting to watch him pass. Some of the ladies in the crowd waved theirhands, and others their handkerchiefs, while the men raised their hats.
Billy put his hand to his cap, saluting as the soldiers do, and Bert,seeing this, did the same thing. Nell and Nan, being girls, were not, ofcourse, expected to salute. As for Flossie and Freddie they were toosmall to do anything but just stare with all their eyes.
As the President's carriage drove along he smiled, bowed, and raised hishat to those who stood there to greet him. The President's wife alsosmiled and bowed. And then something in the eager faces of the Bobbseytwins and their friends, Nell and Billy, attracted the notice of thePresident's wife.
She smiled at the eager, happy-looking children, waved her hand to them,and spoke to her husband. He turned to look at the Bobbseys and theirfriends, and he waved his hand, He seemed to like to have the childrenwatching him.
And then Flossie, with a quick little motion kissed the tips of herchubby, rosy fingers and fluttered them eagerly toward the President'swife.
"I threw her a kiss!" exclaimed Flossie with a laugh.
"I'm gin' to throw one too," exclaimed Freddie. And he did.
The President's wife saw what the little Bobbsey twins had done, and, asquick as a flash, she kissed her hand back to Flossie and Freddie.
"Oh, isn't that sweet!" exclaimed a woman in the throng, and when,afterward, Nan told her mother what had happened, Mrs. Bobbsey said thatwhen Flossie and Freddie grew up they would long remember their firstsight of a President of the United States.
"Well, I guess that's all we can see now," remarked Billy, as thePresident's carriage rolled off down the street and the crowd that hadgathered at the White House gate began moving on. The gates were closed,the policemen and guards turned away, and now the Bobbsey twins andtheir friends were ready for something else.
"Where do you want to go?" asked Billy of Bert.
"Oh, I don't know. 'Most anywhere, I guess."
"Could we go to see the Washington Monument?" asked Nan. "I've alwayswanted to see that, ever since I saw the picture of it in one of daddy'sbooks at home."
"I don't believe we'd better go out there alone," said Nell. "It's quitea way from here. We'd better have our mothers or our fathers with us.But we can walk along the streets, and go in the big market, I guess."
"Let's do that!" agreed Billy. "There's heaps of good things to eat inthe market," he added to Bert. "It makes you hungry to go through it."
"Then I don't want to go!" laughed Bert. "I'm hungry now."
"I know where we can get some nice hot chocolate," said Nell. "It's in adrug store, and mother lets Billy and me go there sometimes when we haveenough money from our allowance."
"Oh, I'm going to treat!" cried Bert. "I have fifty cents, and mothersaid I could spend it any way I pleased. Come on and we'll havechocolate. It's my treat!"
"We may go, Mayn't we, Jane?" asked Nell, of the maid who hadaccompanied them.
"Oh, yes," was the smiling answer. "If you go to Parson's it will be allright."
And a little later six smiling, happy children, and a rosy, smiling maidwere seated before a soda counter sipping sweet chocolate, and eatingcrisp crackers.
After that Billy and Nell took the Bobbsey twins to the market, which isreally quite a wonderful place in Washington, and where, as Billy said,it really makes one hungry to see the many good things spread about anddisplayed on the stands.
"I think we've been gone long enough now," said the maid at last. "Wehad better go back."
So, after looking around a little longer at the part of the market whereflowers were sold and where old negro women sold queer roots, barks, andherbs, the Bobbsey twins and their friends started slowly back towardthe Martin house.
On the way they passed a store where china and glass dishes were sold,and there were many cups, saucers and plates in one of the windows.
"Wait a minute!" cried Bert, as Billy was about to pass on. "I want tolook here!"
"What for?" Billy asked. "You don't need any dishes!"
"I want to see if Miss Pompret's sugar bowl and cream pitcher are here,"Bert answered. "If Nan or I can find them we'll get a lot of money, andI could spend my part while I was here."
"Why Bert Bobbsey!" cried Nan, "you couldn't find Miss Pompret's thingshere--in a store like this. They only sell new china, and hers would besecondhand!"
"I know it," admitted Bert. "But there might be a sugar bowl and pitcherjust like hers here, even if they were new."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Nan. "There couldn't be any dishes like MissPompret's. She said there wasn't another set in this whole country."
"Well, I don't see 'em here, anyhow!" exclaimed Bert, after he hadlooked over the china in the window. "I guess her things will never befound."
"No, I guess not," agreed Billy, to whom, and his sister, Nan told thestory of the reward of one hundred dollars offered by Miss Pompret forthe return of her wonderful sugar bowl and cream pitcher, while Bert waslooking at the window display.
"Well, did you have a good time?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, when her twinscame trooping back.
"Yes. And we saw the President!" cried Nan.
And then they told all about it.
The Bobbseys spent the rest of the day visiting their friends, theMartins, and returned to their hotel in the evening. They planned tohave other pleasure going about the city to see the sights the next dayand the day following.
"Could we ever go into the house where the President lives?" asked Nanof her father that night.
"Yes, we can visit the White House or, rather, one room in it," said Mr.Bobbsey. "What they call the 'East Room' is the one in which visitorsare allowed. Perhaps we may go there tomorrow, if Mr. Martin and I canfinish some business we are working on."
After breakfast the next morning the Bobbsey twins were glad to heartheir father say that he would take them to the White House; and, alittle later, in company with other visitors, they were allowed to enterthe home of the President, and walk about the big room on the east sideof the White House.
"I'm going to sit down on one of the chairs," said Nan. "Maybe it willbe one that the President once sat on."
"Very likely it will be," laughed Mrs. Bobbsey, as Nan picked out aplace into which she "wiggled." From the chair she smiled at herbrothers and sister, and they, too, took turns sitting in the samechair.
Bert found a pin on the thick green carpet in the room. The carpet wasalmost as thick and green as the moss in the woods, and how Bert eversaw the tiny pin I don't know. But he had very sharp eyes.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked his father.
"Just keep it," the boy answered. "Maybe it's a pin the President's wifeonce used in her clothes."
"Oh, you think it's a sou
venir!" laughed Mrs. Bobbsey, as Bert stuck thepin in the edge of his coat. And for a long time he kept that common,ordinary pin, and he used to show it to his boy friends, and tell themwhere he found it.
"The White House President's pin," he used to call it.
"And now," said Mr. Bobbsey, as they came from the White House, "I thinkwe'll have time to see the Monument before lunch."
"That's good!" exclaimed Nan. "And shall we go up inside it?"
"I think so," her father replied.
Washington Monument, as a good many of you know, is not a solid shaft ofstone. It is built of great granite blocks, as a building is built, andis, in fact, a building, for it has several little rooms in the base;rooms where men can stay who watch the big pointed shaft of stone, andother rooms where are kept the engines that run the elevator.
The bottom part of Washington Monument is square, and on one side is adoorway. Above the base the shaft itself stretches up over five hundredfeet in height, and the top part is pointed, like the pyramids of thedesert. The monument shaft is hollow, and there is a stairway inside,winding around the elevator shaft. Some people walk up the stairs to getto the top of the monument, where they can look out of small windowsover the city of Washington and the Potomac River. But most personsprefer to go up and down in the elevator, though it is slow and, ifthere are many visitors they have to await their turns.
If the Bobbseys had walked up inside the monument they would have seenthe stones contributed by the different states and territories. Eachstate sent on a certain kind of stone when the monument was being built,and these stones are built into the great shaft.
As it happened, there was not a very large crowd visiting the monumentthe day the Bobbseys were there, so they did not have long to wait fortheir turn in the elevator.
"This isn't fast like the Woolworth Building elevators were," remarkedBert as they felt themselves being hoisted up.
"No," agreed his father. "But this does very well. This is not abusiness building, and there is no special hurry in getting to the top."
But at last they reached the end of their journey and stepped out of theelevator cage into a little room. There were windows on the sides, andfrom there the children could look out.
"It's awful high up," said Nan, as she peeped out.
"Not as high as the Woolworth Building," stated Bert, who had jotteddown the figures in a little book he carried.
Flossie and Freddie had gone around to the other side of the elevatorshaft with their mother, to look from the windows nearest the river,and, a moment later, Mr. Bobbsey, Nan and Bert heard a cry of:
"Oh, Flossie! Flossie! Look out! There it goes!"